A memorial service for
Justice Thomas A. Harris of the Fifth District Court of Appeal, who passed away
last Wednesday, is scheduled for Dec. 12.

Justice Steven M.
Vartabedian said his friend and colleague had been hospitalized since
undergoing surgery in mid-May, and Presiding Justice James A. Ardaiz said in
the last three weeks “we knew he wasn’t going to make it.”

The cause of death, as
reported by the Fresno Bee, was an aortic aneurism.

The two men met in 1965
when they were both working as clerk investigators for the Fresno County
District Attorney’s office, Baxter said. They both became deputy district
attorneys for Fresno County, and then parted ways to enter private practice.

Harris joined his
father, Everett Harris, at the firm of Harris & Harris, which was founded
by Harris’ great-uncle, state Sen. Morris Bedford Harris, and Harris’
grandfather, Edgar Maxwell Harris.

He was appointed to the
Fresno Municipal Court in 1985 by then-Gov. Deukmejian—filling a vacancy
created by Ardaiz’s elevation to the Fresno Superior Court—and was elevated to
the Superior Court two years later.

In 1990, Harris was
appointed to the Fifth District Court of Appeal to succeed Baxter, who had been
elevated to the Supreme Court by Deukmejian.

“He took over the chambers
that I had,” Baxter explained.

As a jurist, Baxter said
his friend was “very precise, very hardworking, very thoughtful.”

Vartabedian echoed the
sentiment, calling Harris “someone who would always look for the specifics in a
case, and not try to generalize.” He also praised Harris as “a team player,”
“someone you could always talk to,” and “a really selfless individual.”

Harris was “very
soft-spoken,” Vartabedian recalled. “He was not one who would be the center of
attention, but what he said had a lot of weight…. when he said something it
would go to the heart of the issue.”

Vartabedian opined that
Harris “truly would look for the right result,” and “try to achieve justice
under the law as it was presented to us.”

Ardaiz similarly praised
Harris as a “man of steadfast loyalty and strong principles” who was “committed
to the truth.”

He said Harris was most
proud of an unpublished opinion Harris authored reversing a conviction of
multiple child sexual abuse in In re Hubbard, because he doubted the truth
of the children’s testimony because of the way in which it was obtained.

Harris had joined in an
opinion affirming the conviction on direct appeal, Ardaiz explained, but had
continued to nurse doubts about the reliability of the verdict. “Upon subsequent
writ of habeas corpus, Justice Harris found vindication for his concerns and
was outspoken in addressing what he felt was an injustice,” Ardaiz said.

But Ardaiz said what he
remembers most about Harris was his distinctive laugh. “He didn’t joke a lot,” Ardaiz
recalled, “but he would laugh. He just had this laugh, a giggle I guess you
would call it, we’d all recognize it.”

As the end drew near,
Ardaiz said, Harris was unable to speak and was on a respirator, but during a
visit about a week before Harris’ death, something struck him as funny, and “he
just started giggling,” Ardaiz said. “He couldn’t make any noise, but he just
couldn’t stop laughing.”

Harris’ colleagues also
praised Harris’ wry sense of humor. Vartabedian said he would miss the way Harris
could “add humor to various situations we would come about without demeaning it
in any way,” while retired Justice Nickolas J. Dibiaso, who served on the Court
of Appeal with Harris for more than 15 years, said he would miss the way
Harris’ wit “livened many an otherwise leaden legal discussion.”

Ardaiz said Harris’
passions were the law, his family, his cabin, and his car— a yellow 1956
Thunderbird which had belonged to Harris’ father. “That was his baby,” Ardaiz
said. Vartabedian said Harris also enjoyed boating and spending time with his
grandchildren.

“When he was in the
hospital he loved having photographs and artwork of his grandchildren displayed
around his hospital bed,” Vartabedian recalled. “It was quite fetching.”

Harris was also a USC
football fan, and Ardaiz said, “if you wanted to jerk his chain, just talk to
him about when Fresno State beat USC.”

Dibiaso said he was
grateful to have spent many days with Harris during Harris’ illness watching
the USC games.

Harris received an
undergraduate degree from USC in 1961, and his law degree in 1964 from Stanford
University School of Law.

He is survived by his
wife, Judy Harris, two children and three grandchildren.